Many headaches await Dave Jones before Saturday but the challenge to Robbie Fowler to be honest about his fitness for the FA Cup final should not cause one of them. "I would love to play," the prolific but now injury-plagued striker responds to his manager's request. "But I want Cardiff to win the FA Cup. So if I don't think I'm ready and the manager asks me I will say 'no', because I want Cardiff to win."

And yet, despite the selflessness, the temptation to push his 33-year-old frame into one last showpiece remains fierce.

This has been another season when the body has betrayed the precise football brain in Fowler and having made only 13 starts for Cardiff City as a result of a serious hip injury, scoring six times in the process, he is desperate to repay Jones and the Bluebirds faithful in the club's biggest game since Hughie Ferguson clinched the 1927 FA Cup against Arsenal.

The prospect of seizing a day Fowler imagined had been lost forever when he stepped down a division and a world from Anfield last summer also motivates. And then there is the thought of repaying David James, likely to be in the Portsmouth goal on Saturday, for the decision that ensured Fowler would share a place in FA Cup infamy - the 1996 final and those white suits, below.

The city of Cardiff has provided the treasure in Fowler's FA Cup history as the setting for Liverpool's smash-and-grab raid on Arsenal in 2001. Wembley, and the England goalkeeper, provided the trousers. They, the appalling matching jacket and his winner's medal all reside in the Fowler family home and the thought of stepping off the bench to beat his close friend James on Saturday has driven the veteran striker since he returned to training almost a fortnight ago.

"People remind me about the white suits all the time," says Fowler, at the Vale of Glamorgan training base where he must prove his fitness this week. "I've still got the suit, in fact I should wear it for the fancy-dress party next year, but it's one of those things, isn't it? If we had beaten Manchester United, nobody would have mentioned it. But we lost and it has become infamous.

"It was David James' fault we wore the white suits, too. It was his idea. He's bigger than everyone, so nobody questioned him and at the time he was an Armani model. He knew somebody who could get us suits but I think the staff saw it coming that day. They all wore black. I was only a young player and I didn't get much say."

Fowler remains in close contact with his former Liverpool and England team-mate but the pair have ceased the telephone conversations since their clubs reached the final. "Before the final I spoke to him all the time but I don't really want to speak to him at the moment in case he thinks I'm fishing," admits the Cardiff forward.

Jones has given Fowler until 48 hours before kick-off to prove whether, after five months without a game and following surgery in the US, he could make a valuable contribution from the bench, and the former Kop idol has promised a straight answer.

"You don't want to do yourself an injustice and the team is far more important than me as a player," adds Fowler. "But I've done everything that has been asked of me without any problems for 12 days now. I feel as though I'm ready and that's all I can do. I just have to persuade the manager now."

Fowler, who has delayed talks on activating the second year of his contract at Ninian Park until after the Cup final, will draw on Michael Owen's late double against Arsenal in 2001 as evidence that there will be no certainties when the Premier League confronts the Championship on Saturday.

His own possible swansong, however, has caused even the scorer of 230 goals at club level to marvel at football's unpredictability. "I thought my days of playing in major finals were gone, without a shadow of a doubt," he admits. "When you leave the Premier League and come to a Championship side, an FA Cup winners' medal is far, far from your mind. Nobody's given us any hope from the start but we're in the final on merit. We haven't been lucky in any way. We deserve to be in the final."